I’ve got the Blue Law Blues

21Jan

Image via Wikipedia

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’re whole life, or in a state other than Indiana, you’ve had to deal with Blue Laws.

Get ready for a rant…..

Blue Laws (according to Wikipedia) are a type of law, typically found in the United States and Canada, designed to enforce religious standards, particularly the observance of Sunday as a day of worship or rest, and a restriction on Sunday shopping. While most areas have repealed such laws or declared them unconstitutional (which they totally are) or simply unenforced, Indiana still has one that we seem to be clutching onto with a death grip. To this day I can not understand the reasoning for continuing to support our Blue Law as the exceptions and loopholes in it make it completely asinine.

Get this. Say you want to drink an alcoholic beverage on a Sunday, in Indiana that sale is prohibited at grocery stores, convenience stores, and liquor stores but completely allowed at bars, restaurants (after noon) and sporting events. LOGIC!

How about this one. During the rest of the week, if you purchase that alcoholic beverage anywhere besides a liquor store, the law states, it must be sold at room temperature. MORE LOGIC!

Why do we have these laws and why are they so ass-backwards? The laws were created all the way back to the days of Prohibition.

Interesting side note: Prohibition was a primarily religious based attack on alcohol (they must’ve forgotten that they drink wine during communion) and was backed by Standard Oil. At the time, Henry Ford, was planning on having his new automobiles run on pure Ethanol as it was readily available within the U.S. John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, at the time, had a virtual monopoly on gasoline and wasn’t happy with the notion of losing money to Ethanol. He then gave $60 million (today’s value) to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a group pushing for prohibition. Since Ethanol was considered a form of alcohol it’s production was limited by Prohibition. By the time Prohibition ended, automobiles had standardized on gasoline, and Rockefeller continued to swim in his vault of coins, ala Scrooge McDuck.

That's gonna hurt

Anyways, the Blue Laws were created out of Prohibition and to this day are supported by The Liquor Store Lobby. The lobby has a monopoly on cold beer sales that allows them to charge higher prices. They also don’t want sales to be available on Sunday so that they can have a day off. These laws are no longer about protecting Sunday, it’s all about money (as usual), how much can liquor stores make and how much can they give to politicians to vote in their favor. If this had anything to do with Sunday and religion than alcohol sales wouldn’t be allowed in restaurants and bars either. I see there’s nothing to stop me from buying a case of beer on Saturday and drinking it all day Sunday.

If you want Sunday off, don’t open, simple as that, but don’t inconvenience consumers by not allowing anyone else to sell it on Sunday. I recall back when Walgreens was pushing to be allowed to sell beer and wine, all the liquor stores were in an outrage because, oh my gosh they’d have to compete for a change. Quit acting like babies and realize that this is one area that a free market is meant for and that you’re going to have to compete to stay in business, get over it. These laws are outdated and obviously aren’t doing what they were originally intended to do, it’s time that changed.

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